Armando Iannucci (2009)
Armando Iannucci’s TV sitcom farce The Thick of It, when it was first broadcast, not only had a distinctive look but seemed to have its finger on the pulse of contemporary politics. Seeing a bit of the new shows the other night – two, one-hour-long programmes (the originals were 30 minutes) – I thought the material looked tired and no longer felt politically au courant. A character who appeared to be the Leader of the Opposition (played by Roger Allam) was struggling reluctantly with being fashionable in the way his PR people wanted. This idea seemed not so much out of date as to relate to a Tory leader who never existed. The Conservative Party has moved from Hague (who, in his mid-thirties, suggested a sixty-year-old), through Duncan Smith and Howard, to the confidently de nos jours Cameron, with no modernising figureheads in between. Perhaps it’s not surprising that this movie spin-off of The Thick of It – about the build-up to an American invasion of a Middle East country and the production of an intelligence document to justify that invasion – is basically historical, even though there’s no acknowledgement that it’s set in the past.
It’s ironic that such a modern British sitcom has been adapted for cinema in a way that’s essentially not much different from some antiques of the genre, for which transfer from small to big screen entailed ‘internationalisation’ of the TV setting – with foreign travel for cast regulars whom we were used to seeing playing at home. The action of In the Loop switches between London (and the Northamptonshire constituency of the Cabinet minister at the centre of the story) and Washington and New York. Rather as, in 1977, the staff of Grace Brothers went to a Spanish tourist resort in the film version of Are You Being Served? Armando Iannucci might be insulted by the comparison – In the Loop has considerably higher production values and presumably serious satirical intentions – but I think the comparison is fair enough. Are You Being Served? on the Costa Plonka (sic) was merely an extended (and denatured) version of its usual self. In the Loop is The Thick of It kept going for more than three times its original length, thanks to the storyline supplied by the events preceding the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Iannucci and the others involved in the screenplay – Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell and Tony Roche – can write derisively sharp dialogue until it comes out of their ears but they create variations on ineptitude rather than characters. Just about everyone here is self-serving yet thwarted by incompetence – their own or others’. I don’t know if this is Iannucci’s view of the human condition or of political creatures specifically. If you don’t think people generally are self-serving fools, this presentation of them, in a cinema feature, is wearisome, for all the verbal cleverness. (The fact that clever is all that the writing is actually makes it more quickly wearisome.) And if the idiocies on show are the preserve of politicians, their civil service acolytes and media managers, then the target seems too easy and unimaginative to sustain a full-length (106-minute) film, although it’s no doubt enough to keep sizeable audiences happy. Given the limitations of the writing, In the Loop is well cast and well acted, except that performers such as Chris Addison (as the new recruit to the minister’s office), David Rasche (a hawkish member of the US administration) and Alex McQueen (the British ambassador to the UN) are a bit too aware of their characters’ risibility: they all seem to be suppressing a smirk. Some other contributions are more generous – notably those of James Gandolfini (as an American general), Tom Hollander (the cabinet minister) and, surprisingly, Steve Coogan (an obstreperous constituent of the minister) – although, as usual, he’s too conscious of the camera.
There are different grades of stupidity here, defined by gender and nationality. The women – in scenes involving both sexes – aren’t as ridiculous as the men. The Americans – at least when they’re sharing the screen with the Brits – are relatively less ineffectual. But someone always has to be derided. The film’s hierarchy of idiocy means that the high point of suspense – who will look the bigger fool? – comes in an exchange between the two American females in the story (Mimi Kennedy and Anna Chlumsky – who looks a bit like Hilary Swank). The presence of Gina McKee as the head of communications in the British government department at the eye of the storm somewhat obscures these distinctions. Her deadpan – facial and vocal – is actually rather effective here as a comic style but McKee’s depressive, toneless presence makes it hard to tell, as always, what her character is supposed to be.
None of the cast comes within a mile of Chris Langham’s brilliant performance in the first series of The Thick Of It – a treat to watch because Langham combined impeccable timing and detail with empathy. He made the minister Hugh Abbot very likeably, humanly hapless. My recollection of the 2005 shows (although it may not be an accurate one) is that Abbot was the central character, that there was less of the foul-mouthed, splenetic government enforcer Malcolm Tucker, and that the impression Peter Capaldi made in the part of Tucker was the stronger because his appearances were rationed. The loss of Langham looks to have thrown things out of kilter: Tucker seems to be the principal character in the latest TV shows, as well as In the Loop. It’s one thing to present the Alastair Campbell-esque Tucker as an outrageously powerful figure in the government even though he’s working behind the scenes. It unbalances the material (and actually weakens the satirical point being made) to give him the most screen time. I found Capaldi’s rants pretty monotonous here, although – because they’re so relentless and so disproportionate to the offence caused by the people he’s yelling at – he eventually makes Tucker rather troubling: you get to fear for his sanity. (Has this anything to do with Campbell’s revelations, since the original run of The Thick of It, of his own mental health problems?) It’s almost a relief that Paul Higgins, as Tucker’s sidekick, is psychotically aggressive to the point that they become a joke Caledonian double act. (If Armando Iannucci weren’t himself Scottish, he probably couldn’t get away with this.)
I laughed a few times at In the Loop but it’s not much of a film. As satire, it’s hollow: Iannucci offers no suggestions – by way of a character with strongly redeeming features – as to how politicians might behave differently or better. He presents such exaggeratedly crude bunglers that he diminishes the potentially shocking irony that the people we’re watching are in positions of power. He’s careless too: the Chris Addison character seems to be starting his new job at the beginning of a working week yet the cabinet minister’s spectacular gaffe which triggers the plot – describing the prospect of an American invasion as ‘unforeseeable’ – is supposed to have occurred on Radio 4’s PM programme the previous day. PM, though, isn’t broadcast on Sundays. The cabinet minister is the Secretary of State for International Development – a real cabinet post, in contrast to Hugh Abbot’s fictitious government department in The Thick of It. But the International Development Secretary would be unlikely to get involved in the sort of government business described here. It’s unclear whether Iannucci is making some point (if so, what is it?); or doesn’t realise the post actually exists (highly unlikely); or just can’t be bothered to invent a non-existent post (my preferred choice). One of the few surprises is the elegant score by Adem Ilhan, played by the Elysian Quartet. You notice, particularly during the closing credits, its elegiac quality. If that tone is intended, what is In the Loop an elegy for? It surely can’t be for the administrations in Britain and the US which preceded those of Blair and Bush; is it for Armando Iannucci’s hopes for New Labour? I hope it isn’t either. If Iannucci’s approach is based on regretful sentimentality as well as contempt, then In the Loop is worse than I think.
1 May 2009